I did write a letter to the Buyer who had not even had the honesty to say he was not buying my house after all. It was 1992, shortly after my husband had died. This Buyer was a young Solicitor we knew, indeed my husband had taught him, and he had demanded to exchange and complete in one go on the day we moved out. My Agent was very against it as was I and I said I would continue to market the house. However, I organised the Removals people and moving in to my next house and the chain after that was set up.
Then late in the afternoon of the day before we were due to move, my Agent phoned and said the Estate Agent further down the High Street had just phoned him to say that my Buyer had just left, having made an offer on a house that had come back on the market and which he had tried to buy before but was out-bidden, and his offer this time was accepted.
This Solicitor, our Buyer, did not even notify us that he was not going to turn up and buy my house the next day. I would have had my Removals people there. It was not just us but our Sellers where we were to move and the people from whom they were buying and the whole chain! He had completely let everyone down just hours before - without telling us! Yet he had promised that he would exchange and complete at the same time despite my misgivings. Fortunately I had told the people from whom I was buying that this was the case.
Thank God the Agents had morals and passed information on to each other.
Anyway, I knew where this young man lived, with his father, in a huge house. I hand wrote a letter telling him exactly why we were moving, what it was like for my children losing their father and why they needed a fresh start. I told him how hard it had been finding a house still in the children's schools' areas. I told him about the chain of people he had let down, all of whom had packed up and had Removal Firms booked for the following day. I said he had promised he would exchange and complete the next day and I trusted him because he was a Solicitor and we had known him as a pupil at the school (it is a very privileged school).
I took the letter by hand. His father came to the door. I said who I was. He said "I know, I am so sorry" and tears came down his cheeks.
Is it Shakespeare?
"Sharper than a serpent's tooth is a thankless child".
I know King Lear is not exactly the same, but this quotation comes to me every time I see this Father's broken sorrow in my memory's eye. The pain he felt was so clearly from the wrong his own son had done to us, the widow and her children, a thing he, a Solicitor himself, would never do, and had clearly never brought up his son to do. It was so selfish, so nasty, unscrupulous and heartless and cunningly taking advantage of my good will in trusting him by giving him this unusual situation. But he was lying from the outset because he only wanted time to hold on and grab for himself something he apparently knew was coming his way below the market price. He was unconcerned that he inflicted distress on anybody, least of all a family such as we. He had no regard for anybody who suffered from his dishonourable, calculated selfishness. His only care was what he could grab for himself, no matter how much others might suffer due to his indifferent breaking his word.
I doubt if I had made him exchange contracts 3 or 4 weeks earlier he would have kept his word but I suppose he would have lost his deposit. The point is he completely refused to exchange and made convincing reasons for not doing so, (he said he was going away for work... if I remember) making himself seem reliable and honest.
Luckily I had kept marketing the house and another Buyer who lived only round the corner was found in under a week and was ready to move in under a month and the rest of the chain stayed firm.